Cheesebox

Last Candition:
May 30, 2011

4.2

The road to the trailhead is in bad shape. High clearance 4x4 required. Our average speed was about 8MPH in a very capable 4x4. A Subaru would not make it across White Canyon right now, the riverbed is far too rocky.

Cheesebox is completely full of water. We encountered two looooong swims, 200+ yards each. Put your wetsuit on at the first sign of water. You will be swimming for about 4 hours. My 3/2 was NOT enough, a 4/3 or 5/4 would have been better. Booties and gloves are not needed. Even though the water is fresh-ish, it stinks pretty bad. Do not take your wetsuit off until you begin the exit.

The webbing on raps #2, #3 and #4 will need to be replaced soon. Go prepared.

Overall, it was a great canyon choice for an 87 degree August day. Our time was 7h40m with no shuttle. Cheesebox is the best canyon in the area, IMO.

This report is a little late because we continued on vacation from here & weren't able to post until now. We entered via the West Fork and found the canyon to be very wet throughout from the start. It had apparently flashed about a week before - about the time Zion & Hilldale were getting blasted. Three raps. Many pools, swims, long corridors & some skanky sections of pine needle/cow pie soup that were a little difficult to maneuver through. 2nd rap off a jammed 5" log failed on us. Fortunately, the drop was into a pool. No harm no foul, but be careful on that one. Wetsuits were used by all even though temps were reaching the 80's. Quite a canyon workout & challenge with all the swimming. Group of 5 took nine hours.

Did entire West fork (not standard sneak route). Absolutely amazing, and loved it. Worth the extra steps! However, there were a lot of mountain lion tracks and fresh feces up top. Caution.

Went in right after very heavy rains. A lot of swimmers and waist deep sections, not much dry. Swimming through the narrow sections was phenomenal. Final section had lots of log debris, and some smell, but not too bad.

Water levels are a tad lower than when I did the Cheesebox 3 years ago, but everything else is great. A tad cold, but to be expected this time of year. The normal stink in the downcanyon swims still exists, but wasn't nearly as strong. 3 years ago I needed to wash all my gear after because the stink adhered to it all, but this year is wasn't a problem. Cheesebox is an awesome canyon.

The water levels seemed low to me. The water was resonably fresh. There were a couple swims and several deep wades, but there were also long passages of dry gravel that are usually water ways. Many of the downclimbs are completely dry.

We removed excess webbing on a couple raps.

The gnats were a nuisance at camp when the air was still. A 50/50 mix of Skin-so-soft/water seemed to help immensely.

Two possible swims, and a few wading areas. I wore a full 4/3 wet-suit and it seemed like overkill unless you plan on spending time in the nasty water. From the beta I have read, it was a lot more dry than usual.

East and main Fork Cheesebox were both descended and found to be muddy. Some of the debris in the water is a bit nasty but there is cleaner (though still muddy) water towards the end you can swim through to wash it off. Overall a good time.

Cheesebox Rd is in good shape, the crossing at White Canyon has about 6 ft sand on the rd the west side and 25 ft of sand on the rd the east side. The east side will be more difficult trying to get up the sand.

My son and I descended Cheesebox canyon on Memorial day 2011 and really enjoyed this canyon. It had many fun downclimbs spread between fun open sections with house sized boulders to navigate around. The narrows were usually wet and I'd recommend full wet suits in all but the warmest of temperatures - my son got cold in his full suit. We had a half dozen or so full swims, though none very long, and a lot of wading with many up to the chest. Some of the water was avoidable with reasonable exposure for the go-arounds. The rappels were all natural anchors and were in place and in good shape with all the webbing looking fairly new. A single 100 foot rope is adequate for all the rappels unless you want to do the drop in rappel at the very beginning. And the nicest thing about this canyon is the approach and exits are quite short when using a shuttle at the end. Climb Utah beta for coordinates was right on. 6 hours total with a brief lunch stop in the canyon. This is a must do canyon if you're in the Cedar Mesa area.